Bought the Laser Tools bush removal and replacement kit as I didn't want to mess around making the bits.

Guess what.

No tapered installation compressor and no mention of one being needed. Just squeeze it straight in according to the Ikea style picture instructions. Great! So I'm still in for making one once I find out what the proper taper sizes are. Be surprised if you can get much more than 6 ton force out of the dinky threaded rod through the middle. Says threaded rod and nuts are a consumable part. Yeah about one per bush I reckon.

Not that any car stuff is going to get done this month as I put my back out (again) last Wednesday making up the guest bed. Standing around at a machine sort of OK from Monday, sitting up still not good but off to Horsham tomorrow to pick up my air tank and see if the man still has a badge for Mark and will part with it sans tailgate. Says he has a BRC gas set-up from a P38 for under £400. Grab, look over careful like or run?

I figured another £1,000 (ish) to get one ready for UK roads and UK climate. Tyres, air springs, brake flexi hoses, other rubbery suspects and speedo. Radio not an issue for me as I'd do the tablet in the dash mod. Everything coming undone as it should being a major attraction when doing work.
This last episode of back trouble (still on stand up jobs and light duties after three weeks) has made me seriously think about how much under car and similar work I should do in future. Still having problems coming to terms with 63 not being the new 23.

I'm sure I can unload the Bristol project for rather more than enough to cover the expense so pretty cost neutral in the end.

Hard to tell as the lighting in the photos is all over the place. Probably smartphone not camera pictures. But some of the wood, especially on the centre console, does look more like cheap hydrodip rather than proper RR stuff.

I see that there are some repatriated Japanese cars on E-Bay at the moment. Generally £7,000 ± a bit. Often wondered if such are an acceptable way to get a low mileage, un-got at, car without UK climate damage issues. A bit expensive compared to getting a potentially good one nice again but if it gets you 50,000 + miles purely on a normal service schedule a £1,000 premium may be worth it.

My only knowledge of Japanese imports is on the motorcycle side back in the day when it was a fashionable way to get some of the harder to find and unique models. Folks usually found it turned in to a nightmare once the new to me bling had worn off. Nothing that I ever wanted to touch with a barge, let alone the pole!

P38 Range
Nice to know that I'm not going to have any pressure problems when I'm finally fit enough to the job. Looking like next year as I did my back good and proper this time. Spasmed and tore things inside the muscles. Just thankful that it didn't do a disk in.

Gilbertd
That BRC LPG set up the guy at Horsham had was a neatly done installation and he was selling everything manifold, wiring et al all hooked up. About 8 years old tho' so of no interest to me. He said he'd had same on a P38 before and it all went well. Not that worried about selling it due to considering going back to a P38 from an L322 TD6 should the right deals come up.

Nah. Just me being anal! Got reputation for overdoing overdoing to keep up y'know.

Seriously I do wonder where these things fit from the pressure vessel regulations point of view. Normally a cylinder of this size and pressure rating would require permanent serial numbers and pressure ratings applied. Like the welded on label on an ordinary Calor gas cylinder.

Dunno what the actual breed of my so called OEM one was but its only lasted about 3 years. Still just holding the lid up but the slightest knock takes it down. Judging by the relative prices its gotta be genuine LR all the way.

So I picked up another suspension air tank a couple of weeks back. OK condition but the red stuff was on the march so the sensible thing to do was to re-decorate given Mr MoT Mans views on advisories. Still had the yellow label. Careful application of a heat gun got it off in one piece. Took the air tank back to bare metal and treated all the once rusty areas with rust killer. Unfortunately the tank was just too big to handle easily in my blast cabinet so it wasn't possible to do a perfect back to metal job. Close but not perfect. That said I always hit even apparently completely de-rusted steel the the rust killer. Its surprising how much purples up indicating that there was still some rust in the surface.

Two coats of Blackfriars anti rust metal primer and two coats of grey topcoat later the tank was looking pretty good. Can't be bothered to set-up to spray things like this and the Blackfriars brushes on well with decent coverage. Been using it since it was QD90. Vapormatic tractor paint might be a little better but my tins of that are reserved for the P&W. Why grey. Its what I always do. If nowt else it makes it quite clear what I've painted myself. Brightens up the underside bit too.

Was going to put the label back on but it looked far too secondhand against the smart tank. So I scanned it into the computer. Copied it and fired up the CAD program. Put the JEPG picture on the bottom layer of the drawing file and copy on the upper layer. Couldn't quite match the print fonts and doing the diagram bits was um "interesting". But I did find out a few handy wrinkles buried in the Vectorworks menus that I wish I'd discovered 15 years back. Faithful Laserwriter 4M+ printed it out on thin card stock, nearly the right yellow too. Finally ran it though the laminator to protect it. All I have to do now is to decide which glue to use.

PDF file of the label available if anyone else here is mad enough to want one.

The O ring seals are lifed components and only last so long before flexibility drops off allowing them to leak. Used similar pipe and seals on the floating optical tables in the lab back at RARDE / DERA / DRA / QuinetiQ and these were only reckoned to be good for 5 to 10 years even in a benign air conditioned environment. Rather lower pressures tho' so inherently more leak prone. Having the compressor cut in half way through certain experiments could ruin your whole day! Do-overs on tricky 11 hour test runs I could definitely do without. No overtime for salaried staff. Unavoidable requirement for 3 + hours unpaid slavery not being calculated to improve the bunny happiness quotient at the best of times.

Maybe a set of these is what you need :- https://priorart.ip.com/IPCOM/000251024 . Take look at the preview. Sounds good in theory but practice might be different. Dunno if anyone makes them, if its a patent or if its something that has been made and publicised without patenting. Looks fairly trivial to make if you want a bunch. PIA for one or two tho'.

Its been alleged in certain quarters that (repeatably?) lifting a P38 wheels free may slightly unseat the airbags and older airbags lack the squidgyness to go back to fully sealed. Not happened to mine yet.

Time to put some thought into how many more miles you are going to put on the car and what it's worth to keep it healthy.

My view is that once past the 100,000 mile and / or 10 years old anniversary you are onto a hiding to nothing chasing individual potentially serious "could be ... or maybe ... " type faults on any car without obvious evidence of what's gone wrong. Like shrapnel or pass the earplugs luv. Better to isolate the sub system and take the nuclear option of doing the lot in one hit. Generally P38 service and garage level replacement parts aren't silly expensive so if you plan any reasonable future mileage its financially viable. At least then you know where you stand and you've not wasted a ton of time removing and refitting bits several times as you dig deeper.

Putting my money where my mouth is this months play fund is going on full set of suspension bushes etc and 4 UJ's to be done over the winter. (Gonna cost a lot less than the washing machine that ate up last months play fund!). CVs and steering ball joints next in line.

Got so annoyed with the LRcat site during parts picking that I made a Word file of the whole Suspension section and printed it out. Another ring binder on the shelf next to the 8 holding my RAVE printout. If anyone wants it I can easily send the Word file or a PDF over by FTP.

Brothers guide dog is retiring around the turn of the year so I get to inherit 56 lb (ish) of 11 year old Yellow Labrador / Golden Retriever cross dedicated to covering folk with yellow hair. Presumably 'cos blondes have more fun. Although healthily svelte she isn't genetically the most athletic of hounds and doesn't like being picked up so I'm figuring to get some sort of folding ramp or steps to help her into the car.

I don't approve of home alone for long periods and re-bonding will involve a good deal of riding around with me as well as regular walks over Ashdown Forest et al so whatever I get needs to be up to considerable use. Seems to be a wide range of sizes, styles and prices or ramp out there. Mostly mail order so see, let alone try, before you buy is hardly an option.

Does anyone have any experience with such ramps and how to tell the good from the bad?

Thanks Morat. That one looks to be pretty much what I need. Nice to know there is something known to be decent out there if I don't want to make something.

Agree with Sloth that rivets / nutserts are bastard things but are what you need. Biggest problem is that there are many varieties with different holding powers and tool insertion pull requirements. Most of the inexpensive kits with pliers type inserters are really for electronics chassis, thin metal boxes et al jobs and don't hold particularly well. My kit is from RS components so a better one of the breed but I'd not put a bolt in it. Screws only. Screw jack out or screw ramp type puller inserters are much better and let you use a better type of insert with much more grip in the hole.

are far better than the pliers type. Outrageously expensive for a high tensile bolt, nut and spacer tho'. I figure about thruppence three farthing to knock up a spacer with spanner flats if you bring your own bolt. Or a ha'penny less to just drill a bit of hex bar and turn a round relief on the ends so it doesn't catch up on things.

No "might" about buying the pins. Just buy and be done with it. Hard enough to get nice new lightly lubricated ones in, especially at the back. Old, crappy, dirty ones make life that much too much harder.

If your not experienced at this do the front ones first with the arch liner removed. Room to move and you can see whats going on. Not a bad idea to get a few of the liner fitting thingies too in case some break. I think I got five or six spares when I did mine and used them.

Allow time to sort out or make a tool for pulling the top pins out at the back. I'm surprised there isn't a "my really effective pulling tool" design floating around on-line. I rooted around and found something in the collection, dammed if I can remember what I used tho'. (40" Snap-On with middle section, but no top, and side cabinet all full with a 4 drawer filing cabinets worth of overspill equals plenty of scope for rooting.)

Forget the "Took me 10 minutes to change a bag stuck on a rock halfway up a mountain with a leatherman multitool" gloat liers. That one comes from the same list as Mr Haynes oft printed "simply remove .... " which must surely be high up on the most effective ever swearword generator phase list. I made the mistake of doing the back ones first. Took a leisurely summer afternoon to do that pair. Everything was stuck tight but it all came apart once I'd figured the right method of persuasion. Under two hours from pulling the bonnet release to do the fronts. Thoughtful amble usually gets me finished faster than the rush headed guys who have to take time out to fix the bits they broke due to hurrying!

I used wood blocks under my axle stands to get them high enough to support each end of the car wheels free using suitable points on the chassis.
Really should get some bigger ones. I guess the 6 tonne, 600 mm / 2 ft max height ones at £30 odd a pair off t'bay would do.

According to the Grip-Tite website B&Q actually are the UK distributors for them. So the ones you saw could have been genuine. Something to look for next time I'm in Tunbridge Wells. I have an unused set of Irwins but "cam to grab" sounds a better way of doing things than "sharp to dig in".

That bad beam pattern has nothing to do with left hand / right hand dip but everything to do with flat out rip-off inattention to optical design.

The COB LED used has completely the wrong aspect ration. Far too wide so light is going in all the wrong places.

The only way to get a satisfactory beam pattern with our relatively old design rectangular headlamps is with long narrow sources. Either multiple small square LEDs like the ones Powerful UK were selling or suitably short and narrow filament style LEDs. Headlight reflector and lens combination design is quite sophisticated even on our older vehicles. However the fairly flat top and bottom of our reflectors does make for a relatively inefficient light distribution, especially on dip, with normal bulbs. It also constrains the source dimension and size if light isn't going to go shooting all over the shop. The H4 bulbs were, after all, optimised for use with fairly large circular reflectors.

Our lights were designed way before effective computer simulations and the simplifying assumptions needed constrained the designer to using either a line source or multiple points. What happened to light from outside the assumed sources being pretty much in the lap of the gods and invariably bad. Even older design simple circular lights would make a better fist of coping with the wrong shape source. I imagine the smoothing functions used in modern computer analysed designs for headlamp systems to ensure you get results in something approaching reasonable time would also make them quite tolerant of wrong shaped sources. But thats pure guesswork as my professional involvement in real optics and lens design ended before folk got a handle on how to tackle such complex problems.